Customer Reviews

Reconnect

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

...everything is great on this album. What really impressed me is the re-working of "Waves Crash In". Believe it or not, I was walking in the mall the other day and the local Abercrombie and Fitch was playing the Distant World Remix of "The Way I Live My Life" at a very loud volume. This one remix is almost worth the price of the entire album if you are an Iris fan. Somebody at that chain must have good taste in music - at least mometarily.

Iris' Disconnect album is one of my favorite synthpop/ebm albums of all time. So naturally when I heard about this follow-up remix album I jumped at the opportunity to get it. Reconnect is a collection of remixes taken from out of print singles, plus a couple of new mixes by bands like T.O.Y. and Neuroactive. Most of the songs are high bpm "club" mixes, and while few of them rival the original versions, they offer an interesting perspective to Iris' existing hits. Usually remix albums are faceless and fail to produce even one or two truly memorable tracks, but Reconnect is a sturdy listen all the way through...each track flowing into the next rather well. The only track that doesn't seem to fit is the demo version of Saving Time torward the end of the album, which is too similar to the original. Overall though, Reconnect is an outstanding collection of mixes no fan of the band should miss.

Color me impressed. There are still basically two ways to do a dance remix of a synthpop song. You can "strip it down" for 6+ minutes and add drum breaks and house beats and bass noodling and generally gloss over the melodic elements that made the original song great. Or, you can leave those elements intact and simply ratchet it all up a notch. Fortunately for Iris fans, the band chose a roster of fine remixers who are firmly down with the latter, far superior approach.

My favorites are the faultless updates of "The Way I Live My Life," "Waves Crash In," and "Annie Would I Lie To You" (specifically the Y1.999k Extension mix with that great intro buildup), but there's almost nothing here that doesn't work, which is almost unheard of in a remix album. The single exception for me is the Wideband Network Mix of "Annie," which strays too far into house territory for my taste.

I'd love to see Mesh (who remain my favorite band in this genre) release something like this, or to see Iris themselves release a sequel featuring the best tracks from "Awakening" and "Wrath."

I love Iris, and it truly kills me to give this album only 3 stars, but that's what I feel this CD is deserving of. Don't get me wrong--if you liked "Disconnect", you'll also like this, and you'll want to have this if you have ANY desire to own any of the singles released off of Disconnect; as they are VERY expensive and you'll only get about 4 tracks on one them for the price of this CD, which seems to cover most of the rare material and then some. It's also nice to hear the non-album track, 'Everybody is life'.

What makes this CD a bit lackluster in my opinion are two factors, both of which cost them a star.

First off, it's not comprehensive. There are 3 different mixes of 'Annie, would I lie to you' while other songs are completely left out. Where is 'Loom' or my favorites; 'The picture', 'Waves crash in' or 'Twilight'? Yes, I know that these tracks are not singles but this wasn't really released as a singles album either. This is a remix album, and judging by their choice of title, it's not hard to be mislead into thinking that this will be a reworking of the ENTIRE album. And, judging by the remix of another great non-single track; 'Endless", which is absolutely gorgeous and totally revamped with new( and better ) lyrics, it would have been very beneficial to include any sort of new version of these tracks. It would have made this CD a lot better.

The other thing that brings this down another notch is the fact that the remixes--though not bad, pretty much all fall short of the originals and don't mix things up all that much. The only mixes here that made me want to listen more intently are the T.O.Y mix of 'Annie would I lie to you', the absolutely Jaw dropping new version of 'Endless', the first edit of 'Lose in wanting', and 'Danger is the shame'. All the others simply cannot compare to the originals and don't sound terribly different; just faster paced.

All and all, this CD is not a waste of money. You'll at least enjoy parts of it and it's a great companion CD to go along with Disconnect, but it simply cannot compare to it's predecessor. The absence of 4 great songs really goes to show that it took more than just the singles to make Disconnect as great as it is, and that the original is usually always better. If you don't own Disconnect and are considering this, buy the latter first instead.